When I open positive parenting workshops I often recycle the line that parenting is where we all start out hoping to be like the Waltons and end up feeling like the Simpsons.

It's a line that most parents can laugh at with recognition and relief; a reminder that no matter what else is going on in their lives, the biggest daily challenge lies with parenting.
Let's face it, an alien reading the job description for parenting - 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no pay, and a lifetime contract - may find parenting one of the most puzzling aspects of life on earth.

It is also one of the most rewarding and powerful roles that most of us ever experience.
We may like to think that we are shaping the future in other ways, through formal or community work but for most of us the real legacy we leave behind willie withowell, or otherwise, we have taught our children.

One of the problems for parenting is, it isuch a universal part of human experience that it is all too easy to forget how crucially importanthe role is.

This year in September Christchurch City Council will help put together Parenting Week 2000, a week that aims to put a citywide spotlight on the importance of quality parenting. The week will aim to remind us all that although parents have the primary role in raising their children, their work impacts on both their families and the rest of us.

I hope that if the public gets behind Parenting Week we will also be reminded thathe job of parenting can be made a lot easier with community support.

The aims of Parenting Week are close to my own heart.

When we were involved in setting up some bottom line goals for Christchurch as a city, the one I wanted adapted was one evolved by a South American city which wanted to provide a city where every child felt loved and supported.

Parenting Week will provide us with a collective opportunity to move a few more steps toward making that goal a reality.

It is a challenge to all the community groups, retailers and businesses, recreation and leisure groups, churches, schools, families, whanau and individuals to come up with ideas and actions that celebrate and strengthen the family.

I have a hunch that it will turn out to be another area where Christchurch will take a lead role for the rest of New Zealand.

We were the first city in the world to come up with the post of a children's advocate in the Council. We are also a city that, despite the economic and social fashions of any given time, have always kept on course with the idea of running the city for people of all ages.

The lifestyle this city can offer families is one of the drawcards that is powering our growth from new arrivals from throughout the world.

Parenting Week will provide us all with an opportunity to show our support for both building healthy families and for the economic and social benefits this gives us all.

I hope you will make a commitment to helping Parenting Week be the huge success it deserves to be.

See also:
Parenting Week 2000 events
Parenting Guide